MARGAO: As part of their ongoing initiative to create awareness across the State on need for Tiger Reserve to prevent diversion of Mhadei river, the Save Mhadei Save Goa Front on Tuesday visited the Sarpanchas of all five village panchayats in Navelim constituency, namely Navelim, Telaulim, Davorlim, Aquem-Baixo and Rumdamol as well as the Chairperson of the Margao Municipal Council (MMC), where they handed over memorandums regarding the Mhadei River and Tiger Reserve issue.
In the memorandum, they have asked the panchayats and municipality to pass a resolution in their annual meeting urging the State government to notify Mhadei sanctuary as a Tiger Reserve.
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While speaking to media persons after their meetings with the five sarpanchas and MMC chairperson, the team led by Advocate Pratima Coutinho along with Rajan Ghate, Marian Ferrao, Xencor Polgi, Rama Kankonkar and others emphasised that the State government should honour the judgement of the High Court for notifying the Tiger Reserve within three months.
They also argued that the declaration of Tiger Reserve will be a win-win situation for Goa as it will help the State in its fight against the diversion of Mhadei river water by Karnataka.
“If we declare Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary as a Tiger Reserve, our Mhadei River diversion case will become strong in the Supreme Court,” said Rajan Ghate.
Xencor Polgi said that Tiger Reserve is the need of the hour but it is regretful that the politicians have been hurt by the High Court verdict.
He refused to accept the government’s contention that the Tiger Reserve will displace the forest dwellers and alleged that the government is on a spree converting land and promoting mega projects which will put additional burden on existing infrastructure particularly water.
Adv Pratima Coutinho added that they will continue visiting all panchayats and municipalities in order to create awareness on this issue and that they won’t stop their agitation if the government doesn’t change their stance of not notifying Mhadei wildlife sanctuary as a Tiger Reserve.
Rama Kankonkar alleged that the recent forest fires were a step to destroy the habitat of tigers. “All this was to protect mining and real estate lobbies,” he charged further.
